First Impressions of Fecho

So, I haven't finished reading yet, but I thought I would post about how eerily familar this book seems to me. At times, I feel like I am reading my own thoughts and my own experiences in the classroom. Like Fecho, I stumbled across working in a school simply because I needed a job. Yet, since then I have been consumed by the challenge and struggle to be a "good" teacher and help students find purpose in education and learning. Even with small successes in my own classroom, I, too, once felt "powerless to effect much change beyond the walls of [my] individual classroom" and "wondering if it would be better to cut my losses and move on to some other line of work" (17). Nevertheless, I find that Fecho gives me hope and agency. He reminds me of the value of the classroom.

I appreciate Fecho's honesty, admitting that he doesn't have the answers, and so far I have enjoyed following his narrative and attempt to find meaning in the process of teaching. I have been marking several points where he describes his classroom discussions of race and power since that is what I think I want to focus my teacher research project on. But, what I'm also curious about is his independent and collective inquiry practices. It makes me wonder why most schools do not encourage their teachers to take this approach and provide the structure and support necessary to do so. This would seem so much more beneficial to me instead of the handing down of information that occurs during typical professional development. I know when talking about teacher education, we stress the importance of reflective practices. Yet, sometimes I feel that our school system is headed in the direction of creating anti-intellectual teachers. How do we change this course? How do we encourage and support both preservice and inservice teachers to find agency through inquiry?

Reinventing English

Reinventing English was actually given to me a couple of years ago by a colleague. I remember devouring it. I wanted to bring the topics of place, identity, culture, and sexism into my classroom, and this book gave me creative ways to do that. While I never followed any of the suggested units, I did use strategies, such as Four Corners, as well as multi-genre writing assignments, the 2-voice poem, etc. As a beginning teacher at the time, I was bored of the traditional curriculum that wasn't really making my kids think, and this book helped push me to view the possibilities of an English classroom. However, like Amy, Gaughan's labeling of his students bothered me. Instead of taking the position of power in enabling his students to "see the light", I think it would have been interesting if he had also participated in and documented his own journey towards thinking critically about these topics. Nevertheless, I think the premise of the book is one that needs to be discussed by English teachers.

I think the Noddings quote he uses on page 8 proves true, "The traditional organization of schooling is intellectually and morally inadequate for contemporary society. We live in an age troubled by social problems that force us to reconsider what we do in schools." I wonder: why don't some teachers want to have these conversations in their classrooms? Is it too complicated or controversial? Do we assume students can't handle it? Have we lost our sense of agency? Is it just easier to read what is provided in the textbook and do what we've been doing for years? I don't know the answer, but I can remember when I first entered into these conversations with my students, I was worried about my views and opinions escaping me when I was supposed to be the "neutral" one. I was worried about being seen as a teacher with an agenda. However, the more I participated in these conversations with colleagues and in graduate classes, the more comfortable I felt in bringing these topics into the classroom. Through these discussions, I began to see more of my students engaged and challenged. I remember the satisfaction I felt when a student remarked, "This is making my head hurt!"

Yet, even now, I still worry that the resources and topics I choose for my class will lead my students toward a certain belief or opinion, but I think my goal is to get them to think about why they think the way they do and what influences their beliefs - not to think the way I do. I think maybe the important piece that is missing is providing multiple narratives with a variety of perspectives and teaching students how to think critically about ALL texts, representations, etc.

More on teacher research...

So, in thinking more about my ideas for teacher research and after our discussion in class, I've realized, yet again, that these questions are too great and too broad for one project. I believe the next step is to ground myself in thinking about what data I can collect. As the authors of What Works? suggest, I will also have to define certain words in my research question, such as "discussion", "open-minded", etc., since inevitably we all may think of these differently. I can't say I've narrowed it down yet, but your comments and resources have been helpful in figuring out what exactly I'm trying to accomplish.

To complicate matters, I also am taking an amazing class on advanced multicultural curriculum, which has heightened my interest in bringing conversations about power, race, and positionality to the classroom. I've had these conversations with students previously in spurts depending on what we're reading, but I would really like to explore this deeply in relation to identity. If I go back to the classroom next year, I think it would be interesting to have students write about who they think they are in the beginning of the year, which I ususally do, but extend that from a one-project kind of deal to them tracking the shifts in their identities throughout the year, seeing if their views change or if they feel like they have more agency based on our discussions and critical thinking of race, power structures, and positionality. Again, this is just kind of a seed in my brain right now.

I know, why can't I just make things simple? Don't worry. Hopefully, I'll figure out how to fit one of these ideas into a teacher research project.....eventually. Any thoughts are always greatly appreciated...

Teacher Research

While reading What Works?, I began to figure out my own path towards conducting a teacher research project. Furthermore, since I am exploring the idea of teacher agency in another class, I appreciated Strater and Sunstein's positioning of systematic inquiry as "both a form and a method for teacher resistance and for teacher agency" (xvii). I actually tried working on teacher research a couple of years ago; but, in the end, I found my inquiry to be too broad. Nevertheless, I did gain student data that enlightened my teaching practices during the process. From that experience, I've realized that this time around I should be more focused, practical, and consistent if I am going to follow through and achieve some useful results. Consequently, I would like to use this post to share my ideas and get your feedback (and hopefully encouragement) on this endeavor.

First, I'm interested in the idea of discussion in the classroom and how to resist the traditional notion of many teachers that quiet students = good students. Often, discussion in class can turn into more of an interview format, where teacher asks a question and a student responds; teacher asks another question, and another student responds. Thus, I would like to explore the quesion:

How do you create authentic, ongoing, active discussion in a classroom that is relevant to students' lives and goals, promotes a high-level of critical thinking, and provides opportunities for all voices to be heard?

Is this too lofty? I thought some subquestions would include:

How does mobility, attendance, race, etc. come into play in creating this type of environment?
What are the roles of teacher and student in a discussion?
How is the inherent power relationship of teacher and student mediated through the use of discussion in the classroom?
How do you get students to listen to each other's conflicting thoughts/opinions?
Does this create more open-minded individuals as a result?
What effect do discussions have on students' sense of agency?

If y'all could post comments/questions that would help guide me, I would really appreciate it. I know that I often think in broad terms, so I need help getting focused, and I don't know if we'll have time in class to work through this. I have a lot of ideas (that I won't elaborate on right now), but if you know of any books, articles, etc. that would help me, please let me know. Thanks in advance for your help!

Self-Fashioning and Shape-Shifting

I found this chapter really interesting. The differences between working-class and upper-middle-class identities of teenagers are enlghtening, and the portions of transcripts Gee includes from his study support his conclusions. It made me wonder if one of the reasons why working-class teens focus more on interactions through narrations, rather than their futures, has to do with the levels of concerns. Many of the students I taught were in survival-mode, so the possibility of college was a concept of luxury rather than necessity. Gee describes working-class teens as "reacting intelligently to an 'on the ground' reality" rather than the hope for future success and achievement that the upper-middle-class kids express in their interviews (182). While I realize the roots of these differences are increasingly complex in terms of culture, class, racism, etc., I do feel our current school system perpetuates and socially reproduces ideas of which people are capable of what thinking, jobs, etc. This is obvious in Gee's description of the differences in schooling at the bottom of page 182. It is this deficit thinking personified in our schools that disturbs me. While Gee, on page 183, credits "families and the society at large" for these inequities, while later offering a simple solution of resourcing students in urban schools with modern technologies, I think we have to do much more to help working-class teens shift their thinking toward the possiblities that could await them in the future. Furthermore, we need to shift our own thinking of simply providing these teens with the opportunity for a job in the future to a liberating education of highly critical thinking.

bell hooks speaks of these differences as well in her own experiences as a teacher at both Yale with upper-middle-class students and a Harlem school with working class students. She describes the difference being that upper-middle-class students possess a sense of agency and entitlement while working class students seem to be missing this agency. You can view her 6-minute video about this here:



So, beyond providing working-class students with modern technologies, how can we encourage them to experience and embody their own agency and entitlement to a successful future?

Multimediating and more...

I'm going to discuss a few chapters here that peaked my interest, and see where that takes me. So, I hope everyone can follow along. First, in chapter 2, I came away with wanting to use more media in my own classroom. NCTE this year is focused around multiple literacies, so I'm looking forward to learning more about how to bring these literacies into the classroom. In past workshops, I've learned about implementing blogging and electronic portfolios, yet whenever I get home, it seems that technology is just never consistently available for us to use at school. I try to incorporate my new knowledge, but I always appear to fall short in the grand scheme of things. Furthermore, the majority of my students do not have computers at home, and thus, are not as technologically literate as one might think. However, O'Brian reminds me on pg. 42 that technoliteracy does not have to be simply "tied to particular tools like computers", but is a much broader concept that deeply connects, "literacy, learning, and technology together in critical, cultural ways." While I like this thinking, still most of the projects he describes do use hardware and software tools involving a computer.

How can we improve accessbility to technology for ALL students? It seems that if we don't, we are placing these students at even more of a disadvantage later in life. I always say I'm going to write a grant, but never seem to find the time. Does it solely rest on the shoulders of teachers? I do realize, though, that even with greater accessibility, I have a lot more to learn. I think I tend to fall back on print literacy probably because that is what I'm most familiar with, but integrating multiple literacies could be another way to create reciprocity in the classroom. Plus, I have noticed that when I do think of media as a literacy for students to explore, they are much more engaged in reading and writing practices.

Doh! I ran out of time, but I will post more later. I especially would like to discuss Chapters 6 and 8....

Teaching Reading to Black Adolescent Males

Sorry, guys, I thought I posted this, but I think I wanted to add something, so I waited and saved it. Ironically, I don't remember what it is I wanted to add. Oh well, here it is anyway:

While I sometimes wonder about the cultural symbol of black males that Tatum describes in this book, I am so grateful that attention is finally being given to a group that has so often historically been ignored in our schools. Likewise, I am appreciative of Tatum for bringing the misunderstandings teachers have of black adolescent males to the forefront of everyone's minds. Like others, I saw how this could also relate to many students in our urban schools. I have often heard teachers say certain students don't want to learn, and like Tatum, I find that students, once they assume that the teacher does not care whether they learn, then they are less likely to make an effort. Likewise, there are several studies about students' self perception which confirm this idea that once students view themselves as "non-achievers" or "nonexistant", it is a difficult path back to confidence. Thus, students "wear the mask" that Tatum describes on p. 34. In order to remove this mask, I think we, as teachers, need to celebrate the successes of students more often and show them that their strengths and life experiences are valued and can be used to improve their reading and writing skills.

Finally, I was a bit confused by the reading strategies Tatum discusses in the second half of the book. In particular, the "spelling scaffold for dictation" figure on page 99 was a bit disturbing. I don't think I would ever use this in my class. But, I do agree that teachers, in any case, need to begin to choose texts that their students can relate to if they want to give reading purpose. These texts aren't often found in schools, so as a teacher I began to seek them out on my own. Last summer, I read Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun by Geoffrey Canada, and immediately had a feeling my students would find purpose in it. We ordered a bunch of copies at the beginning of the year, and later, I have never seen so many of my students want to read and discuss the ideas in the text. This allowed me a sneek peek into what can be possible, and the reading of Tatum's book reminded me of its importance.

Beers

I first read When Kids... as part of our English Department book study during my first year of teaching. I remember distinctly using it as a handbook of sorts, so I appreciated being forced to find the time this week to actually read it cover-to-cover. Plus, it was an interesting experience to re-read parts five years later, in a completely different mental state. I think one thing I like about Beers' writing is that she also reflects on her own learning process as a teacher. Just as we talk about reading as being a process, so is teaching. When talking with collegues, we often hear about the "good" or "bad" teachers, but really Beers shows the insight that can happen if we reflect on our observations, listen to our students, and delve into how to teach rather than just what to teach.

While reading, I had yet another realization of how much I miss teaching in my classroom. Reading through the strategies, such as Say Something, Sketch to Stretch, Anticipation Guides, and Probable Passage, reminds me of the exciting days of working with students. However, at the time I wonder if I even understood what I was doing. I just remember feeling that there was no way we could simply read aloud everyday and answer questions. If I found that boring, my students would find it ten times worse! So, yes, there were angelic voices singing in my head when I first read this book.

Now when I read, my mind shifts to my student teachers. I have been in many classrooms lately where the "class discussion" is very similar to what Beers describes on p.50-52. I loved the inclusion of the teacher's reflection, "It wasn't a discussion. It was me asking questions and the kids responding. Why would I want to do it that way?" She continues by admitting that it was perhaps due to her own ways of being taught. I think this is true in many cases. My student teachers are facilitating the discussion the way they know how. And often, trying something new and unfamiliar can be difficult.

Yet, like Beers, I've been trying to encourage self-reflection. Last week upon group work sort of "bombing", one student teacher said, "I guess group work just doesn't work." As I tried to hide my shock and horror at his statement, I replied, "Wait. Back up. We need to talk about why it didn't work in this instance and what we can do next time." So, although I appreciate Beers' book for having provided me with so many strategies at the time, I now understand how much having people around me who pushed my own traditional thinking made a difference in how I taught my class. Likewise, it has reminded me of the great importance of reflecting on your teaching and encouraging others to do the same.

Push

I struggle with where to begin to convey my response to Push. I, like Audra, seemed to be traveling the continuum of aesthetic and efferent reading. But I found that whenever I began to think about my own role as a teacher, my emotions inevitably pulled me back to Precious. Now that I reflect, the differences between reading this book and the mostly efferent readings of graduate school seem to jump out at me. For one, in Push, I never seemed to look at what page number I was on, or how many pages I had left to go. I just read. Secondly, my mind seemed to escape into moments of thinking of my own student whose name is Precious, thinking of another student who had a baby at 13 after a rape, thinking of how and why a world could be so cruel, and thinking of the resilience and perserverence it takes to live a life like Precious' and how anger and pain manifests itself in the classroom. I thought and built connections, but never once did this break my concentration of what I was reading. Instead, it appeared to all be happening at once.

Yet, I wonder: How would this experience have been different if I knew I was going to be tested on my reading? It's almost like school can, at times, put shackles on our minds rather than freeing them to think and travel down their own path.

My Rosenblatt Rollercoaster

Okay, guys, am I the only one that couldn't seem to "get into" this book in the beginning? I mean, it wasn't until the "Openness and Constraint" chapter that I finally seemed to be experiencing the text in a positive way. I find the idea of reading as a transaction, or an event, extremely interesting, but for some reason while I was reading Rosenblatt's words, my eyes seemed to get heavy, and then I started daydreaming about other things, until finally I would realize that I was not even reading the words on the page anymore. So, I would have to go back and start again to where I assumed that my break in attention elapsed. Since I'm reading a book about reading, I feel the need to use what I'm reading to reflect on why I couldn't focus on what I was reading and what made the difference around p. 71.

Granted I know Rosenblatt is talking mostly about poetry and predominantly aesthetic texts here, but I appreciated her refusal to take an either/or stance by putting efferent and aesthetic reading on a continuum. I feel that I actually travelled back and forth on this continuum during the journey of several readings of Rosenblatt. Her inclusion of excerpts of poetry almost forces my mind to switch gears into more of the aesthetic end, and then travels back towards efferent when I begin to read again for pedagogical insight.

Rosenblatt describes the event of reading on p.14 as, "A specific reader and a specific text at a specific time and place: change any of these, and there occurs a different circuit, a different event." I really like this idea. I know many friends (and I have probably done it myself) who put the blame on the text - "It's just not a good book" - instead of thinking about all of the variables that come into play while reading. On the other hand, I find students sometimes put the blame on themselves instead - "I just don't get it." I like the transactional theory because when I think about it, reading IS an event, a unique moment in time of certain understanding and connections. So, it's not Rosenblatt's fault or my own that I couldn't really get into the first 50 or so pages, but now that I think about it, I did start reading the fifth chapter on a different day, at a different time, with more experiences and different thoughts on my mind.

Finally, I also appreciated Rosenblatt's courage to address the counterarguments of Hirsch and the New Critics. Viewing reading as simply a task of interpreting the author's intentions not only promotes an elitist way of looking at literature, but also disregards its relevance to our lives. The transactional theory seems to empower readers, allowing everyone the opportunity for self-discovery. Rosenblatt's suggestion to "consider the text as an even more general medium of communication among readers," perhaps even allows for more possibilities of a piece of text. In fact, this is how reading exists in many aspects of life - the Oprah book club, blogging, etc. - for some reason, it just doesn't happen as much as it should in schools. I have to think about why this is for a bit longer and reflect on another post. Does it still have to do with power?

Some personal connections

Reading Literature as Exploration, first, made me reflect on my own growth as a reader and, second, my growth as a teacher. My passion for reading kind of disappeared when I hit junior high and continued on throughout high school. I always used to think it was because I didn't ever seem to like the books that my teachers chose for me to read, but now I understand that it might have, in fact, had something to do with the way literature was taught. It was a very traditional school - we completed book report summaries and took quizzes and tests, but I was never really able to connect to these texts or was expected to gain my own meaning. I simply took notes on the teacher's explanation of the deeper meaning. I remember dreading having to read in class or for homework; it was so boring! As I visit schools around the district now, I still see this type of instruction occuring in many English classrooms, although probably less frequently than in the past. I remember my first year of teaching getting caught in the same trapped thinking of, "Well, I must check to see if they read on their own, so write a summary." Not until we discussed levels of questioning as a department, did I realize how there really was not much thinking involved in this activity, and from my own experience, summarizing actually kind of distances you from what you're reading.

Additonally, many of the books we read in high school would be considered "classics". When I didn't see the beauty in these books, since I was too busy working on day-to-day assignments, I began to feel there was something wrong with me. I began to turn to wriitng as an emotional outlet and didn't really see the purpose in reading books. However, the summer of my junior year I read Of Mice and Men, not because it was required of me, but because I was bored and it was sitting on our bookshelf. It was actually the first book that ever made me cry. So, I find it interesting how I had to escape school to begin connecting and appreciating literature. The following year, my passion was alive again. I had an excellent teacher who facilitated activities and experiences in which we became the Holocaust victims and Vietnam soldiers whom we read about. I began to see and understand the humanity, or inhumanity, present in literature, as Rosenblatt discusses. This caused me to want to read more.

Wow, the power of teaching. It's kind of scary!

Just an idea.

I think I'm going to ask high-school kids what they think about all this and what ideas they have. Sometimes, I feel we leave them out of the conversation, and they actually have a lot of insight to offer; after all, they're participants. Applebee mentions a bit about how kids see the oddness of it all, but I would be interested in hearing more. Just an idea.

Curriculum as Conversation

First, let me just say I love this book, and I've made it my personal goal to one day meet Mr. Applebee and tell him so. (Randy, maybe you can make that happen!:) I've been caught in a swamp of reading lately, which has been kind of numbing, but while reading this book, I felt lightbulbs continuously going off. The first most notable realization was transforming my view of science. I never really liked science in school and wasn't very good at it. Plus, I somewhat attributed the educational standards movement to people wanting to make teaching into a rigid science and ignoring its artistic aspects. But, Applebee's discussion of Thomas Kuhn and how leading scientists "interpret old observations in new ways, and reconfigure what is considered relevant, interesting, or anomalous," really made me see science in a new way, as well as its connection to education (15).

I also was extremely intrigued with the idea of "knowledge-in-action." I've always been interested in classroom discourse and how it lends itself to the exploration of the world/society and self-discovery, but it seems that most of our assessments don't take this into consideration. (The AP test's multiple-choice section is based entirely on knowledge-out-of-context.) So, the question remains, how do we move towards more authentic assessment? I thought of maybe having an exit-interview, replacing TAKS, and allowing kids to formulate and defend their responses. This might encourage conversations in our classes rather than test practice. Any other ideas?

I also found his look into the English curriculum enlightening. While many teachers do hold on to the Canon since this is what they were taught, I also think many departments are moving towards including more recent, multicultural titles on their book lists. Doing so, from my experience, lends itself more to knowledge-in-action and conversations where students can discuss their conclusions and make their own arguments, exploring what they think and why they think that way. Last year, I ordered a ton of copies of Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun by Geoffrey Canada, and we had amazing discussions about violence in our country. Kids who said they hated reading were actually reading at home so that they would be able to participate in our class conversations. This was after TAKS though, so just think what we could do if we didn't have the test looming over our head!

I wish we thought more about curriculum in our schools; it seems that many times in our current system we let the assessment placed on us guide our teaching practices. I think we could benefit from looking at it the other way around. What assessment will help us ensure kids who are graduating can make sense of their world? One of my favorite Applebee quotes is, "Any conception of education that strips these tools of their contexts, or focuses on their past rather than their present relevance and future potential, will be debilitating for the individual and for society as well." That said, there are still teachers who don't subscribe to this concept. I really loved what Harrison did in his classroom (44-49), having kids enter into a conversation about the Canon, where it came from, and the cultural conflicts involved. That sounds much more interesting than memorizing interpretations about symbolism.

More to come...

After Thoughts

I just wanted to let everyone know that I really enjoyed our conversation yesterday. It really helped me make sense of all the thoughts I had while reading. Instead of just concepts, I was able to see each literacy in concrete, practical terms.

I was also thinking more about New Criticism. I reflect back to the interpretations we were required to do in high school, and I think it was actually more of a recitation type of literacy we were engaged in rather than a translation/critical literacy. The teacher would tell us her interpretation in class, and on tests we received good grades if we repeated that back to her. I remember thinking early on that there was a right and wrong answer because whenever I seemed not to write what the teacher had said and instead write what I thought the meaning to be, I would get the question wrong with the assumption that I hadn't been paying attention in class. So, I think it's important to remind ourselves not to really have a predetermined response in our heads when we ask open-ended questions about interpretation.

Evolution of literacy

Although Myers' Changing Our Minds was extremely dense and I sometimes wondered how I was going to get through it all, it was actually pretty interesting. I struggle with synthesizing all of this information in a blog, not knowing where exactly to start, so I guess I'll just write about what struck me about the evolution of literacy.

Myers poses the question early on, “when, how, and why do people shift from one literacy to another?” (16) So, I thought I could let that guide my post to give me a little direction. First, when. Well, from what I can gather the type of literacy we teach in our public schools seems to change every 75 years, give or take a few. According to Myers, these time periods also represent a change in social needs. So, if we try to discover the pattern, we should be up for another shift around 2058. Any predictions on what society will be like then and what our needs will be?

How? I didn’t really find an answer to this question. I read from chapter to chapter following the chronological progression, but I don’t feel like Myers really let us in on HOW exactly these changes ended up taking place. Well, I mean, it’s not like one day “the powers that be” just informed all teachers that we were going to change the way we teach. It had to be gradual. So, even though some teachers may value tradition and work within the decoding/analytic model now, I think more and more of us are seeing the value of expecting higher-order thinking skills through translation/critical literacy. Nevertheless, I also agree with Myers in that, “a new form of literacy will not alone improve schools” (299). I think that the traditional structure of factory schools, introduced by Cubberly, will also need to be changed for students to truly receive the benefits of translation/critical literacy. Likewise, I feel that we must address the inequity and segregation in our school system if we are going to improve the abilities of all students and stop sorting and pushing students out of school, a shameful act of the past.

Finally, the why. Well, while Myers accredits the changes in literacy to our changing social needs, I’ve also come to the conclusion that people’s ideas of what these social needs are and what students need to succeed will always be different. Thus, views of what should be taught in our English classes will always be different. This is quite obvious in Myers’ introduction where he outlines the educational beliefs of five different groups in our society. I also thought it was interesting how Myers mentions that he doesn’t believe public rhetoric alone will create change in our public education system. He says we must connect a change to a specific social need, providing the example of our desire for a reduced class size (78). I personally think public discourse about these issues is the first step. And, I wish that simply connecting a desired change to a social need would, in fact, implement that change, but I think it’s much more complicated than that. While politicians should be listening to the public, it appears that most people are caught up in results, numbers, and standards, neglecting the educational process and the 100-year old structure that students are forced to participate in daily. So, the big question: how do we shift this public interest?

I know this is already a long post, but there is so much more to talk about – the role of culture in our literacy practices, inequity in our school system related to social class and race, literacy’s connection to power, etc. Yet, I will leave that for another time. Even though this book was a little difficult to navigate, one concept I did gain is that literacy holds a more complicated definition than to simply “read and write”.